Services

Danish Geothermal District Heating provides services within the following three main areas:

* Project development and deployment * Operations support * Research & Development and other general activities

The overall purpose of Danish Geothermal District Heating is to bridge the gap between district heating companies, research institutions, universities and traditional consultants. Danish Geothermal District Heating therefore provides services within the following three main areas:

By including all three areas in our work, a unique exchange and use of knowledge and experience is created – to the benefit of all three areas and ultimately for the benefit of the district heating companies.

In addition to these three activities we also work with a number of general activities with the purpose of improve the possibilities of using geothermal energy for the production of district heating.

Project development and implementation

Prior to and during the construction of a geothermal energy plant we can assist the board, management and personnel of the district heating company with the following services:

Screening of project ideas – from a few general inputs on geology, heat consumption, existing production units, flow and return temperature requirements etc. we can provide a first indication, whether a geothermal energy plant can produce district heating at competitive prices

Project development – optimization of the conceptual layout together with the acquisition and evaluation of existing data on the local geology

Risk evaluation and sensitivity analyses – e.g. on production and investments

Regulatory issues – application for a license to explore for and produce geothermal energy as well as assistance in relation to other regulatory issues like environmental approvals

Planning, execution and test of wells – sparring with experts, contractor and service companies with the goal of assuring that the wells are designed and drilled with the operations in mind

Design of the surface plant – sparring with consultants as well as expert advice on submersible pumps, injection pumps, filtering systems, heat pumps and other components that are special for geothermal energy plants

When the project is completed and wells, surface installations etc. have been constructed we can through our network assist with the sale of surplus materials to other geothermal projects.

We can assist with solving stand-alone tasks within one or more of the above mentioned areas – or we can take on the role of special advisor to the project owner, where the services are tied together and combined with classical project management tasks like the control of time and finances, contracting of competent consultants and experts, constructors and suppliers, etc.

After the commissioning of the geothermal energy plant we can assist with further studies that are often a natural extension of the construction project.

Operations support

When a geothermal energy plant has been constructed and commissioned we can assist the operational organization of the district heating company with making sure that the plant is operated in a sensible way with respect to the reservoir and subsurface, and that operational problems are identified and dealt with fast and efficiently and at the lowest possible costs. Our experts will be able to supervise the operation of the geothermal energy plant and as needed provide guidance to the local operational organization with regards to operational and maintenance tasks.

As examples of operational tasks that we solve, the following can be mentioned:

Optimization of the operation of wells and surface installations including heat pumps and the overall principles of operation in a SCADA system

Supervision of flow and pressure conditions in wells

Change-out of production pumps

Well inspections

Soft acidation, clean-out and other remedial actions in wells

Research, development and other overall activities

Apart from the task solved directly for the individual district heating companies as described above, we also participate in a number of research projects together with scientific institutions like GEUS (the geological survey of Denmark and Greenland), DTU (the technical university of Denmark), Aarhus Universitet and international partners. Through an active involvement we work to make sure that research and development are focused on subjects that are relevant to the users – the district heating companies – and that the knowledge generated is efficiently transferred to and fully made available to these.

Please find more information on the current R&D projects underResearch and development.

Furthermore we work to extent the knowledge on geothermal energy for district heating production in society as such – in order to create public acceptance and interest, support from politicians and other decision makes, improve the resource pool of the educational institutions, etc.